Exit Strategy

Exit

In 5-10 years I’d like have someone ready to replace me as Lead Engineer.  I would keep the title of CEO or CTO (can’t decide what flavor of Chief I’d like to be) and remain on the board, possibly as the majority shareholder.

Why

Within the next 5-10 years, the business should be developed enough to sustain itself without too much of my involvement.  I’d still like to remain involved in the general business direction and high-level idea development, but pass on the day-to-day tasks to someone else.  I would then use the rest of my time to start and grow another business.

How has exit influenced other decisions?

I haven’t really thought about an exit strategy until now.  In the back of my mind, I think of starting a business as I would any project, work at it until it’s done.  In this case, done is when the business turns a profit and can sustain itself.  At that point, there would obviously be more innovations to make in order to keep the business relevant, but that, to me, is optimization.  And I’d rather pass the job of optimization on to someone brilliant who can spearhead the task.  My role would be to say “yes” or “no” to a given direction, allowing me the opportunity to personally take another project from concept to reality and then pass that product onto the optimizers.